EOS R6 M2 : few questions after reading the manual

bmninada wrote:

1. Dual pixel: I can see if using DPP, etc. it offers some low-light + ultra fine correction opportunities. Question is: is it common to set it to Enable?

A of right now, only DPP4 (and the body itself) can use DPRAW. So having it enabled is mostly for future proofing, hoping for 3rd party support. Personally, I shoot mostly in CRAW, I fail to observe differences between DPRAW, RAW and CRAW, so I pick the option that gives me the smallest filesize

2. Highlight Tone Priority: How many use it?

HTP just fakes the ISO you see in the EVF, it's practically the same as dialing in negative exposure compensation and brightening it in post.

For the things I shoot, mostly insect macros, I want the opposite: preserve detail in the shadows and on dark exoskeletons. So I try to use positive EC on the body or flash.

3. HDR photos : can some suggestions be given when switching to HDR might be better? I apologize: I never shot anything using HDR and tried it but confused a bit (it all looks the same ..LOL)

There are 2 HDR modes: one that takes multiple pictures and blends them and the other that will give you H(E)iF files for a single exposure instead of JPEGs. I really want to like the HEIF option, since in theory it will give you much-better-than-JPEG quality for the same filesizes. And on modern displays the PQ curve gives you eye-searing highlights.

But the ecosystem isn't there yet, in very stupid ways. Adobe tools look at the filename, not at the file itself. So you have rename IMG_7896.HIF to IMG_7896.HEIC for ACR/LR/PS to even notice it, it's 2023, not 1993! And then you'll discover that there's no actual support for preserving the tonemap and curve, so anything you export will be non-HDR. ACR gained rudimentary support for HDR last month, so maybe we'll see it in LR/PS in 2024.

See https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4673868 and https://gregbenzphotography.com/hdr/ for more in-depth background.

4. Similarly : focus bracketing: any real use case please?

Others have shown examples of using it for focus stacking, but there's another, related use as well: Quickly taking a number of pictures with a different focus distance. If you're shooting something where it's hard to control the subject distance or lock focus on a specific feature, you can focus slightly in front and then have it automatically take a lot of pictures where it shifts the focus each picture. You can then pick the one with the best focus and discard the rest.